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Featured Artist at the ALCC: Chris Gryder

The Alabama Clay Conference, to be held in February, 2012 in Birmingham (and hosted by my husband, ceramic artist Scott Bennett) will feature three well-known ceramic artists who will give all-day demonstrations and exhibit their work.

Here is the work of Chris Gryder, one of the featured artists. I've included an article below about his work, a piece I wrote for Ceramics Monthly magazine, November 2006. I'll blog about the other two artists in the next couple days.

Negative Impact

The Work of Chris Gryder

Chris Gryder began his exploration
of art by studying architecture. A sincere and dedicated commitment to the
subject led to his acquaintance with artists, methods, and concepts that later
became the inspiration for his work in sculpture and clay. From the visionary
designs of Antonio Gaudi and the philosophy of Louis Sullivan to experimental
work in mold-making for architectural pieces, Gryder pieced together a singular
aesthetic and an uncommon process of sculpture-making.

During his undergrad work at Tulane
University in the 80s his interest in the straight, clean lines of modern and
postmodern architecture was tentative. His disillusionment with Bauhaus purity
became quite apparent when he discovered the work of Gaudi. His eyes were
opened to a new world of architectural form. Gaudi incorporated ceramics in his
architectural surfaces. Ornament was not only used, it encompassed entire
buildings. It was the building. While Gaudi’s work gets categorized as Art Nouveau,
it fully transcended the movement by taking the typical flowing, plant-like
forms so popular at the time and using them not only as motif but as
architectural framework. He was a sculptor on a very grand scale. Gryder
responded to everything about the work: the diversity of form, the hands-on
quality of execution, the acceptance of ornament, the abundance of references
to the natural world.

For three years Gryder worked in the field of architecture
until a 5 year stint in the desert of Arizona turned his head to the world of
sculpture. He lived and worked on Paolo Soleri’s project Arcosanti which had
been developing prototypes for urban ideas since the 1970s in a clay studio and
bronze foundry 65 miles north of Phoenix. While Gryder worked there building
architectural pieces he overwhelmingly responded to building with his hands, a
pastime used less and less in the field of architecture. Working in the ceramic
studio he gained rudimentary technical knowledge and started playing with the
idea of making molds in the negative. With memories of Gaudi emerging, he began
an interest in making organicsculptural forms.

Gryder began graduate work at Rhode Island School of Designwith ideas and inspiration fueled by his recent
explorations at Acrosanti. The most striking aspect of his art-making during
his graduate years was the atypical process he used to create vessels. All
pieces are fashioned in the negative. Explained in basic terms, he first builds
a box and fills it with packed silt. With his hands and simple tools he carves
a negative into the silt which will become the exterior of the vessel. From
there he pours commercial slip (with roughly the density of a thick milk shake)
into the carved cavity. The slip dries slightly over several hours until Gryder
scoops out all the slip that is still liquid. When the clay has dried
completely he breaks the mold and has a completed greenware piece. The surface
is covered with neutral colors of terra sigillata.

The process is involved and time-consuming, but appealing to
Gryder. He explains that in a one-off single casting the artist doesn’t have to
concentrate time and energy on preparing the mold for repetitive use, a process
of accommodation which often informs the piece visually. More freedom of design
is allowed with a mold that dissolves after each piece. The procedure also
offers the opportunity for more spontaneous and unexpected results.

Covering the outside of Gryder’s vessels are odd protruding
forms that travel in patterns. When aware of the artist’s process, one can
imagine the act of scooping that produces the curious structure and contour.
Whether seeming to be strange botanical elements or grotesque geological
formations, one is reminded somewhat of Gaudi. The surface is rough, like sand,
with peculiar gatherings of hardened sediment tucked into the tight spaces
between forms. Without knowing the process a seasoned clay enthusiast would be
hard-pressed to understand how the extraordinary surface was achieved.

In contrast to the swelling forms, coarse texture and matte
patina of the exterior, the inside finish is smooth and satiny, and a different
color. The fervent dissimilarity of surface is entirely arresting, reminding
one of a broken coconut or a sea creature with an open shell. Art historically
vessels have represented, among other things, the human soul. Gryder’s pieces
allude to this symbolism with their harsh, seemingly protective outer layer
which opens to reveal a velvety interior.

Vessels were Gryder’s primary focus in grad school, but he
also dabbled in tiles using the same process. After graduating and finding a
following for his work, tiles became more of a focus, and eventually their
popularity and his interest in them pushed them into the forefront of his
production.

Like the exterior of the vessels Gryder’s tile surfaces have
a sandstone-like quality. The aesthetic of Gryder’s tiles unite his former
training and influences in modern design with his passion for the sensual and
primordial. Furthermore, the two dimensional aspect of tiles leaves room for
more pictorial and narrative exploration. The tiles as a group manifest
themselves in large wall relief constructions, often 8 to 10 feet in length.
Gryder starts by developing the piece linearly, focusing on overall form. The
divisions of space could represent primitive ceremonial diagrams, molecular
models, or planetary trajectories, conjuring associations with the metaphysical
and the scientific. Possible horizons divide night and day, sea and land, earth
and sky, above and underground. These divisions seem proportional and balanced
enough to give the impression that the artist has used the Golden Mean for
calculation. Indeed, a sense of the mathematical pervades the work, and is all
the more emphasized by the grid formation of the tiles themselves. Like crop
circles in a field of perfectly straight rows of corn, one wonders if an
indecipherable map has been laid out, its function hidden behind its mysterious
beauty.

Within the individual tiles are a myriad of various abstract
forms which reference for the most part the natural world. At first one is
confident in deciphering leaf forms, but on closer examination leaves could be
feathers, wings, or crystalline growth. A suggestion of insects, fruit, seeds,
and pods seem feasible. The eye can follow forms that insinuate ocean waves,
branches on a tree, animal trails, veins on a leaf, or water ripples. The rises
in the relief hint at a possible model of a landscape. And while features of
the natural world are hinted at, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to see the spinning
cogs and mechanisms of a moving contraption. The whole impression is one of
liveliness and action.

Many of Gryder’s influences reach far back into history,
probably due to the proliferation of ornamental carved relief in primitive
cultures. The artist’s design arrangements and motifs recall Pre-Columbian
architectural facades, especially Incan patterns and Mayan imagery. As in
prehistoric cultures he frequently uses circular forms with layers radiating
from a center like icons or mandalas. Added to these influences of design is
the fact that the art of early cultures now exhibits the damage of time.
Gryder’s technique lends a quality of aged or decayed stone, reminiscent of
ancient ruins.

The success of Chris Gryder’s work lies in his ability to
combine and integrate so many opposing approaches to expression. With a
seamless style he manages to mix the purity of modernism with a joyous
celebration of profuse ornament, an ostensibly impossible task. His imagery
invokes disparate ideas, from the analytical approach of science to the
spiritual demonstrations of primitive culture. The work captures a feeling of
the ancient and the new, the naïve and the sophisticated, spontaneity and
order. Gryder’s skill in encompassing and uniting divergent themes offers the
viewer an exceptionally rich experience.